DEATH.
Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his!—Numbers, xxiii. 10.
But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me. II. Samuel, xii. 23.
What man is he that liveth, and shall not see death? Shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave?—Psalm lxxxix. 48.
Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.—Psalm cxvi. 15.
Weep ye not for the dead, neither bemoan him: but weep sore for him that goeth away: for he shall return no more, nor see his native country.—Jeremiah, xxii. 10.
O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.
But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.—I. Corinthians, xv. 55, 56, 57.
But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.
For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.—I. Thessalonians, iv. 13, 14.
Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil,
And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.—Hebrews, ii. 14, 15.
Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.—Revelations, xiv. 13.
Ah, but to die, and go we know not where;
To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot;
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice:
To be imprison’d in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendant world; or to be worse than worst
Of those, that lawless and uncertain thoughts
Imagine howling! ’tis too horrible!
The weariest and most loathed worldly life
That age, ache, penury, imprisonment,
Can lay on nature, is a paradise
To what we fear of death.
Shakspere.
O harmless Death! whom still the valiant brave,
The wise expect, the sorrowful invite;
And all the good embrace, who know the Grave,
A short dark passage to eternal light.
Sir W. Davenant.
This world death’s region is, the other, life’s:
And here it should be one of our first strifes,
So to front death, as each might judge us past it:
For good men but see death, the others taste it.
Ben Jonson.
The glories of our birth and state
Are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armour against fate:
Death lays his icy hands on kings:
Sceptre and crown
Must tumble down,
And in the dust be equal made
With the poor crooked scythe and spade.
Some men with swords may reap the field,
And plant fresh laurels where they kill;
But their strong nerves at last must yield,
They tame but one another still.
Early or late
They stoop to fate,
And must give up their murmuring breath,
When they, pale captives, creep to death.
The garlands wither on your brow,
Then boast no more your mighty deeds,
Upon death’s purple altar now
See where the victor victim bleeds:
All heads must come
To the cold tomb:
Only the actions of the just
Smell sweet, and blossom in the dust.
Shirley.
He patient show’d us the wise course to steer,
A candid censor, and a friend sincere;
He taught us how to live; and (Oh! too high
The price of knowledge,) taught us how to die.
Tickell.
That I must die, it is my only comfort;
Death is the privilege of human nature,
And life without it were not worth our taking;
Thither the poor, the prisoner, and the mourner,
Fly for relief, and lay their burdens down.
Come then, and take me into thy cold arms,
Thou meagre shade; here let me breathe my last.
Charmed with my Father’s pity and forgiveness,
More than if angels tuned their golden viols,
And sung a requiem to my parting soul.
Rowe.
Death comes with irrespective feet
And beats upon the door,
That shuts the palace of the great,
The cabin of the poor.
Howell, from Horace.
And since ’tis certain then that we must die,
No hope, no chance, no prospect of redress;
Be it our constant aim, unswervingly,
To tread God’s narrow path of holiness:
For He is first, last, midst—O, let us press
Onwards—and when death’s monitory glance
Shall summon us to join his mortal dance,
Even then shall hope and joy our footsteps bless.
From the Spanish of R. de Carrion.
I fled and cried out Death—
Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sighed
From all her caves, and back resounded Death.
Milton.
Thou dost, O Death, a peaceful harbour lie
Upon the margin of Eternity;
Where the rough waves of Time’s impetuous tide
Their motion lose, and quietly subside.
Weary, they roll their drowsy heads asleep
At the dark entrance of Duration’s deep.
Hither our vessels in their turn retreat;
Here still they find a safe untroubled seat,
When worn with adverse passions, furious strife,
And the hard passage of tempestuous life.
Blackmore.
Dear, beauteous Death, the jewel of the just,
Shining nowhere but in the dark,
What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust,
Could man outlook that mark!
He that hath found some fledg’d bird’s nest may know
At first sight, if the bird be flown;
But what fair field or grove he sings in now,
That is to him unknown.
Henry Vaughan.
The man, how wise, who, sick of gaudy scenes,
Is led by choice to take his favourite walk
Beneath death’s gloomy, silent cypress shades,
Unpierced by vanity’s fantastic ray!
To read his monuments, to weigh his dust,
Visit his vaults, and dwell among the tombs!
Young.
Why should man’s high aspiring mind
Burn in him, with so proud a breath:
When all his haughty views can find
In this world, yields to death;
The fair, the brave, the vain, the wise,
The rich, the poor, the great, and small,
Are each, but worm’s anatomies,
To strew his quiet hall.
Power may make many earthly gods,
Where gold, and bribery’s guilt, prevails;
But death’s unwelcome honest odds,
Kicks o’er the unequal scales.
The flatter’d great, may clamours raise
Of power,—and their own weakness hide;
But death shall find unlooked-for ways
To end the farce of pride.
Death levels all things, in his march
Nought can resist his mighty strength;
The palace proud,—triumphal arch,
Shall mete their shadow’s length:
The rich, the poor, one common bed
Shall find, in the unhonoured grave,
Where weeds shall crown alike the head
Of tyrant, and of slave.
Andrew Marvell.
The prince, who kept the world in awe,
The judge, whose dictate fix’d the law,
The rich, the poor, the great, the small,
Are levell’d: death confounds them all.
Gay.
There was, ’tis said, and I believe, a time
When humble Christians died with views sublime;
When all were ready for their faith to bleed,
And few to write or wrangle for their creed;
When lively faith upheld the sinking heart,
And friends assured to meet prepared to part;
When love felt hope, when sorrow grew serene,
And all felt comfort in the death-bed scene.
Crabbe.
On this side, and on that, men see their friends
Drop off, like leaves in autumn; yet launch out
Into fantastic schemes, which the long-livers,
In the world’s hale and degenerate days,
Could scarce have leisure for: fools that we are!
Never to think of death, and of ourselves,
At the same time! As if, to learn to die,
Were no concern of ours!
Blair.
Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
Bridal of earth and sky,
The dew shall weep thy fall to-night,
For thou, alas! must die!
Sweet rose, in air whose odours wave,
And colour charms the eye,
Thy root is ever in its grave,
And thou, alas! must die!
Sweet spring, of days and roses made,
Whose charms for beauty vie;
Thy days depart, thy roses fade—
Thou, too, alas! must die!
Be wise, then, christian, while you may,
For swiftly time is flying;
The thoughtless man may laugh to-day,
To-morrow may be dying!
Bishop Horne.
Death distant!—no alas! he’s ever with us,
And shakes the dart at us in all our actings;
He lurks within our cup, while we’re in health;
Sits by our sick-bed, mocks our medicines;
We cannot walk, or sit, or ride, or travel,
But death is by to seize us when he lists.
Sir Walter Scott.
Since we can die but once, and after death
Our state no alteration knows,
But when we have resign’d our breath,
Th’ immortal spirit goes
To endless joys, or everlasting woes;
Wise is the man who labours to secure
That mighty and important stake;
And by all methods strives to make
His passage safe, and his reception sure.
J. Pomfret.
Death rides on every passing breeze,
He lurks in every flower;
Each season has its own disease,
Its perils every hour!
Our eyes have seen the rosy light
Of youth’s soft cheek decay,
And fate descend in sudden night
On manhood’s middle day.
Heber.
Death’s but a path that must be trod,
If man would ever pass to God;
A port of calms, a state to ease
From the rough rage of swelling seas.
Parnell.
Happy the babe, who, privileged by fate
To shorter labour, and a lighter weight,
Received but yesterday the gift of breath,
Ordered to-morrow to return to Death.
Prior.
Leaves have their time to fall,
And flowers to wither at the north wind’s breath,
And stars to set—but all,
Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death!
Mrs. Hemans.
O what is Death? ’Tis life’s last shore,
Where vanities are vain no more!
Where all pursuits their goal obtain,
And life is all retouched again;
Where, in their bright results, shall rise
Thought, virtues, friendships, griefs, and joys.
Leigh Richmond.
Cold hand, I touch thee! Perished friend! I know
What years of mutual joy are gone with thee;
And yet from those benumbed remains there flow
Calm thoughts, that best with chastened hopes agree.
How strange is Death to life! and yet how sure
The law which dooms all living things to die!
Whate’er is outward cannot long endure,
And all that lasts, eludes the subtlest eye.
John Sterling.
Ere sin could blight, or sorrow fade,
Death came with friendly care,
The opening bud to Heaven conveyed,
And bade it blossom there.
Coleridge.
O Death! Thou great invisible,
Pale monarch of the unending Past,
Who shall thy countless trophies tell,
Or when shall be thy last!
By thee high thrones to earth are flung—
By thee the sword and sceptre rust—
By thee the beautiful and young
Lie mouldering in the dust.
Into thy cold and faded reign
All glorious things of earth depart;
The fairest forms are early slain,
And quenched the fiery heart.
But in yon world thou hast not been,
Where joy can fade, nor beauty fall:
O, mightiest of the things unseen,
Save One that ruleth all!
Geo. H. Colton.
To die is landing on some peaceful shore,
Where billows never beat, nor tempests roar,
Ere well we feel the friendly stroke ’tis o’er.
Garth.
The air of death breathes through our souls,
The dead all round us lie;
By day and night the death-bell tolls,
And says, “Prepare to die!”
The loving ones we love the best,
Like music all are gone!
And the wan moonlight bathes in rest
Their monumental stone.
But not when the death-prayer is said,
The life of life departs;
The body in the grave is laid,
Its beauty in our hearts.
Professor Wilson.
Sleep on, sleep on, ye resting dead;
The grass is o’er ye growing
In dewy greenness. Ever fled
From you hath Care; and in its stead
Peace hath with you its dwelling made,
Where tears do cease from flowing—
Sleep on!
Robert Nicol.
All at rest now—all dust!—wave flows on wave;
But the sea dries not!—what to us the grave?
It brings no real homily; we sigh,
Pause for awhile and murmur, “all must die!”
Then rush to pleasure, action, sin once more,
Swell the loud tide, and fret unto the shore.
Sir E. Bulwer Lytton.
Ah! it is sad when one thus link’d departs!
When Death, that mighty sev’rer of true hearts,
Sweeps through the halls so lately loud in mirth,
And leaves pale Sorrow weeping by the hearth!
Mrs. Norton.
So live, that when thy summons comes,
The innumerable caravan that moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
That thou, sustained and soothed, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
Around him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
W. C. Bryant.